ACTIVITY: Found Poem with Anaphora

Write something in which:
- each line begins with "In the end"; and
- complete each line by taking words from the first lines of random books from the shelves of the ABP Library.

In the end among the pleasures.

In the end, jazz has been my passport.
In the end, all of us have taken various types.
In the end, every book begins with dissatisfaction.
In the end that changed the world.
In the end, the crowded red double-decker bus inched its way...
In the end, without the new media.
In the end, who were among the earliest?
In the end, there are by now many.
In the end, my part in this book.
In the end, intricate designs created from many gleaming pieces.
In the end, all we can do is gaze in wonderment.
In the end  in the faraway land.
In the end, if you are beginning.
In the end it grew too big.
In the end too unexpected.
In the end on a spring day.

ACTIVITY: Found Writing Using Word Strips

Today, I brought some glue sticks and a large collection of word strips--pages of text that had been cut into their individual lines of text. After sifting through them, club members assembled the word strips into visual word collages.

Tami asked how long it took to cut all the paper because, like the computer in "EPICAC" by Kurt Vonnegut, I had brought enough word strips "for the next 500 years." I explained that it was something that a few other teachers and former students worked on many years ago when we had had some free time.

Take a look at our of the results below...

Make the opening of your speech lively--

She interviewed the scientists and included them in her film.
he saw fascinating renewable energy installations, but also oil spills,
Yet for some reason, the people who have earned our patience
can't be flown out until
the center of the Milky Way.

Watching an entire island melt in a way that is unprecedented makes you
need it.

Can I see you again?

Astronomers have a long wait--

What's wrong with me?
We have no real social contract with them.
That constitutes a higher form
It's settling out in the ocean

ACTIVITY: List Images w/ Colors

This week, Creative Writing Club members made lists. Imagery is at the heart of good poetry, and making lists of random images often produces surprising results. Also, trying to find a way to look at the things around us--things that, perhaps, on a daily basis, we don't notice too closely--might help us make some kind of discovery about where we can find images and about how to arrange them.

To construct our lists, we walked around the LAS Building and wrote down what we saw. We imposed the constraint of including a color in every observation that we added to our lists. For additional effect, some of us included pictures of our observations.

Read some of our results below...

one black sign and one yellow one across from each other

each blue stair up to the next floor
Yousef's yellow binder
green grass on the other side of the window
a black and yellow pencil
a red mop bucket
some leaves on the dying plant
a picture of a pink crab who is saying,
"Hi! I'm a Crab!"
prayer times in purple
a silver column that reflects everything
the white table with one white paper on it
a package of gold and red Camel cashews
a turquoise button on a power strip
all these flags with white stars and stripes
a red light eyeing me from the wall near the elevator
a silver key
a cream couch that nobody uses